John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
United States |serviceyears=1940 - 1941 |rank=Pilot Officer |branch= Royal Canadian Air Force |unit=No. 412 Squadron RCAF |battles=World War II |awards= |laterwork= }} John Gillespie Magee, Jr. (June 9, 1922 - December 11, 1941) was an AmericanFighter pilot poet "BBC", 23 February 2007 aviator and poet, who died at 19 as a result of a mid-air collision over Lincolnshire during World War II. He was serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force, which he joined before the United States officially entered the war. He is most famous for his poem "High Flight". Life Youth Magee was born in Shanghai, China, to an American father and a British mother who worked as Anglican missionarie]. His father, John Magee Senior, was from a family in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of some wealth and influence—there is the Pittsburgh Magee Hospital and the Magee Building. Magee Senior, disregarding family wealth, chose to become an Episcopal priest and was sent as a missionary to China and there met his wife, Faith Emmeline Backhouse. Faith came from Helmingham in Suffolk, England, and was a member of the Church Missionary Society. John and Faith were married in 1921; John was their oldest son, born in 1922, followed by David, Christopher and Hugh. John began his education at the American School, Nanking (1929–1931). In 1931 he moved with his mother to Britain where he attendedSt Clare preparatory school near Walmer, Kent, from 1931 to 1935. He was educated at Rugby School from 1935 to 1939. Magee developed his poetry while at the school, and in 1938 won the school's Poetry Prize. He was deeply moved by the roll of honor of Rugby students who had fallen in the First World War. This list of the fallen included the celebrated war poet Rupert Brooke (1887–1915), whose work Magee greatly admired and who had also won the school poetry prize 34 years prior to Magee. The poem refers to Brooke's burial, at 11 o'clock at night in an olive grove on the island of Skyros in Greece. : "Sonnet to Rupert Brooke" : "We laid him in a cool and shadowed grove : One evening in the dreamy scent of thyme : Where leaves were green, and whispered high above — : A grave as humble as it was sublime; : There, dreaming in the fading deeps of light — : The hands that thrilled to touch a woman's hair; : Brown eyes, that loved the Day, and looked on Night, : A soul that found at last its answered Prayer... : There daylight, as a dust, slips through the trees. : And drifting, gilds the fern around his grave — : Where even now, perhaps, the evening breeze : Steals shyly past the tomb of him who gave : New sight to blinded eyes; who sometimes wept — : A short time dearly loved; and after, — slept." While at Rugby, Magee met and fell in love with Elinor, the daughter of Headmaster Hugh Lyon. Elinor Lyon was the inspiration for many of John's poems.Sunward I've Climbed. Hermann Hagedorn, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1942. (In this biography, Elinor was referred to as "Diana.") Though Magee's love was not returned, he remained friends with Elinor and her family through to the end of his life. Magee and his family visited the United States in 1939. However, due to the outbreak of war, he was unable to return to Britain for his final year. Instead he lived with his aunt in Pittsburgh and attended Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connecticut.Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr. "macla.c.uk" He earned a scholarship to Yale University — where his father was then a chaplain — in July 1940 but did not enroll, choosing instead to enlist in the Royal Canadian Air Force in October of that year. Air Force Career Magee joined the RCAF in October 1940 and received flight training in the province of Ontario at RCAF Stations Downsview (Toronto), Trenton, St. Catharines, and Uplands (Ottawa). He passed his wings test in June 1941. Shortly after being awarded his wings and being promoted to the rank of Pilot Officer Magee was sent to Britain. He was posted to No. 53 Operational Training Unit (OTU) in RAF Llandow, Wales, to train on the Supermarine Spitfire. It was while serving with No. 53 OTU that Magee wrote his poem High Flight. After graduating from No. 53 OTU, Magee was assigned to No. 412 (Fighter) Squadron, RCAF, which was formed at RAF Digby, England, on 30 June 1941. The motto of this squadron was and is Promptus ad vindictam (Latin: "Swift to avenge"). Magee was qualified on and flew the Spitfire. Death Magee was killed at the age of 19, while flying Spitfire VZ-H, serial number AD-291. The aircraft was involved in a mid-air collision with an Airspeed Oxford trainer from RAF Cranwell, flown by Leading Aircraftman Ernest Aubrey. The two aircraft collided in cloud cover at about 1,400 feet AGL, at 11:30, over the village of Roxholm, which lies between RAF Cranwell and RAF Digby, in Lincolnshire. Magee was descending at the time. At the inquiry afterwards a farmer testified that he saw the Spitfire pilot struggling to push back the canopy. The pilot stood up to jump from the plane but was too close to the ground for his parachute to open, and died on impact. Part of the official letter to his parents read: "Your son's funeral took place at Scopwick Cemetery, near Digby Aerodrome, at 2:30 P.M. on Saturday, 13 December 1941, the service being conducted by Flight Lieutenant S. K. Belton, the Canadian padre of this Station. He was accorded full Service Honours, the coffin being carried by pilots of his own Squadron." Magee is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Scopwick in Lincolnshire, England. On his grave are inscribed the first and last lines from his poem High Flight: : "Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth – : Put out my hand and touched the Face of God." A biography, Sunward I've Climbed, The Story of John Magee, Poet and Soldier, 1922–1941 was written by Hermann Hagedorn in 1942. Writing "High Flight" Magee's posthumous fame rests mainly on his sonnet "High Flight", started on 18 August 1941, just a few months before his death, while he was based at No. 53 OTU. He had flown up to 33,000 feet in a Spitfire Mk I, his 7th flight in a Spitfire. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem—"To touch the face of God." He completed the poem later that day after landing. Magee enclosed the poem on the back of a letter to his parents. His father, then curate of Saint John's Episcopal Church in Washington, DC, reprinted it in church publications. The poem became more widely known through the efforts of Archibald McLeish, then Librarian of Congress, who included it in an exhibition of poems called "Faith and Freedom" at the Library of Congress in February 1942. "Per Ardua" — the last poem? Shortly after Magee's 1st combat action on November 8, 1941, Magee sent his family another poem ("... another trifle which may interest you."). Or rather, the beginnings of a poem, never quite finished. Although it is not certain, this poem is quite possibly the last that Magee wrote. Per ardua ad astra is the motto of the Royal Air Force and other Commonwealth air forces such as the RAAF, RNZAF, and the former RCAF. It dates from 1912 and was used by the newly-formed Royal Flying Corps, and is translated as "Through struggles to the stars". : "Per Ardua" : (To those who gave their lives to England during the Battle of : Britain and left such a shining example to us who follow, these : lines are dedicated.) : "They that have climbed the white mists of the morning; : They that have soared, before the world's awake, : To herald up their foeman to them, scorning : The thin dawn's rest their weary folk might take; : Some that have left other mouths to tell the story : Of high, blue battle, quite young limbs that bled, : How they had thundered up the clouds to glory, : Or fallen to an English field stained red. : Because my faltering feet would fail I find them : Laughing beside me, steadying the hand : That seeks their deadly courage – : Yet behind them : The cold light dies in that once brilliant Land .... : Do these, who help the quickened pulse run slowly, : Whose stern, remembered image cools the brow, : Till the far dawn of Victory, know only : Night's darkness, and Valhalla's silence now?" Recognition As a student at Rugby, Magee won the Rugby Poetry Prize for his poem "Brave New World."Elinor Florence, "High Flight written 75 years ago," ElinorFlorence.com, February 17, 2016. Web, Mar. 17, 2019. Publications *''The Complete Works of John Magee, The Pilot Poet; including a short biography by Stephen Garnett''. Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, UK : This England Books, March 1989. See also *List of U.S. poets References *''Icarus: An anthology of the poetry of flight'' (edited by R. de la Bere). London: Macmillan, 1938. *Herman Hagedorn, Sunward I've Climbed. New York: Macmillan, 1942. Notes External links ;Poems *"High Flight" * Selected Poetry of John Gillespie Magee Jr. (1922-1941) at Representative Poetry Online. ;Audio/video *High Flight at YouTube *"High Flight" an example of a modern setting of this poem ;Books *''The Complete Works of John Magee, the Pilot Poet'' at Amazon.com ;About *[http://www.highflightproductions.com/high_flight_productions/JohnMagee.html Magee and High Flight] *Gillespie Magee at Bomber Command Museum *Bartleby – Great Books Online Category:1922 births Category:1941 deaths Category:American poets Category:English poets Category:Royal Canadian Air Force personnel Category:Aviators killed in aircraft crashes in the United Kingdom Category:Old Rugbeians Category:20th-century poets Category:Poets Category:English-language poets Category:War poets Category:People from Shanghai, China Category:Poets who died before 30